External HD

[Matheous-2]

I have an externally enclosed 1TB SATA hard drive which until yesterday has been absolutely fine (Hitachi). Now, I can faintly hear it make a 'whoop' sound as if trying to boot up with the indicator lamp showing 'red' and after 15/20 seconds turns 'green' but does not show on my monitor as 'mounted'.....It's not any more than two years old and not used daily - Does that sound like 'curtains' for it? Or could it be a cable problem?

[NOX]

Have you tried unplugging everything, replugging it ( power and all)? Mine occasionally does something similar, or occasionally when it picks it up asks if I want to reformat it and usually killing it's power source for about 5 mins does the trick- no idea why as I don't think it ought to make a huge difference, but it does seem to work.

[Matheous-2]

Thanks for the suggestion NOX- it does seem to come on after several sw on sw off sequences....Can't help wondering if the power supply is beginning to fail...

[Old_Geezer]

Whatever the cause, to state the obvious, make sure anything you need kept is backed up now. May be worth running disk check software too after the back-up.

[Matheous-2]

The odd thing is -I have it running now -after many,many sw on/off attempts! I am also running a virus check too. I wish I knew if the problem was the enclosure itself- I never liked the sort of 'mushy' power switch since I got it....

[Matheous-2]

My virus check found one called 'class.zip' .....still ploughing through deleting free space on each partition before I try a shutdown & restart....

[Matheous-2]

Just in case anyone still following this....PROBLEM SOLVED! - After swapping drives over (I have two enclosures for backup) The 'problem' drive booted up normally, allowing me to conclude my suspicion for the enclosure being the culprit! I paid a bit more than I intended for a new enclosure from Maplin but still saved about £70 which I might have spent on a new terra bite SATA drive which was not required.....Thanks to all who responded!